


Butter Pecan

by Achrya



Series: Roommate AU [1]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Roommates/Housemates, Kissing, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-30
Updated: 2015-10-30
Packaged: 2018-04-28 23:11:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,081
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5109038
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Achrya/pseuds/Achrya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's New Year's Eve and roommates Bucky, Sam, and Jim have nowhere to be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Butter Pecan

**Author's Note:**

> Tales from my college roommate AU, in which Bucky, Sam, and Rhodey (Jim) share an apartment. Had this idea in the dead of night and though this is not the season I will never tell Sam, Bucky, and Jim no.  
> Pairings: SamBuckyRhodey. Or it could just be platonic kissing. …ahahahaha. Hahahah. *wipes away tear* Background Steve/Peggy and implied onesided Bucky/Steve.  
> Warnings: Flimsy excuses for kissing, language, underage drinking. …really Tony is the biggest warning. Tony is an underage hot ass mess in this universe (but that’s a different story), though we never actually see it. Bucky is kind of bitter about it.

“We’re pathetic.” Jim declared around a spoonful of ice cream.

Bucky let out a breathy laugh. “Well shit. Don’t hold back Rhodes, tell us how you really feel.”

“Just look at us.” Jim said mournfully. “Inside on New Years doing the same thing we do every weekend.”

As far as New Year’s Eve festivities went Sam was of the opinion that sitting around with his roommates with a tub of butter pecan, a few six packs of beer that obstinately declared they were gingerbread flavored (Sam strongly disagreed. Bucky said it was because he lacked a proper appreciation for good beer. Sam was pretty sure that was the whitest thing he’d heard all day.) playing video games wasn’t so bad.

Sure it wasn’t going out somewhere with other people from their classes and they weren’t drinking themselves into a stupor as was their right as college students of more or less legal age or on the road to getting laid but that was fine. He was warm, for one, folded up on the couch under one of the knitted blankets the Lensherr kids had given them for Christmas, just buzzed enough to be amused and not maudlin, and it wasn’t like Jim and Bucky were bad company.

The opposite, actually. They were the two people he prefered to be around these days.

So what if Bucky was staying in because Steve and Peggy were doing a couple’s thing. A couple’s thing that maybe involved a ring, or at least that’s what Steve had implied when he’d been around earlier.

There was the matter of the systematic shattering of Bucky’s heart which, as it turned out, could only begin to be mended by kicking Sam’s ass at Mario Kart over and over. Sam was, really, going a service. It was his roommate duty to tend to Bucky when he was being pathetic.

Not that he was any better. Riley’s latest email had mentioned he was going to try to give him a call tonight. So rather than attend one of the parties he’d been invited to, and there had been a few, or heading out with Clint and Natasha or just striking out on his own he’d stayed in.

Or course now it was nearly about fifteen past eleven and there hadn’t been a call yet. It wasn’t all that unusual or even something worth being concerned about. It didn’t necessarily mean anything at all; things happened sometimes and there were always a lot of guys trying to make calls and

Well. It happened. Sam got that.  

He’d worry all night, maybe not sleep and instead sit up watching bad TV until he eventually passed out on the couch.

It was a tried and true system.

“We didn’t ask you to babysit us.” Sam pointed out.

“And leave you two alone? Nope.” Sam got the feeling it was aimed more at Bucky than him and the soft snort from the younger man confirmed it. They had a strange thing going on that he wasn’t privy to and he wasn’t sure what to make of it.

Jim’s phone chimed, strangely loud and out of place, and the other man straightened himself out of from his sprawled position on the floor. He had a spoon hanging out of his mouth but he dragged it out with a slowness Sam thought was pretty unnecessary then drug his tongue over his lips as if to chase the flavor of the ice cream.

Not that Sam was watching his mouth or anything. He was very focused on the game and-

Out of the corner of his eye he saw his character, Rosalina, get hit with a boomerang flower and spin out of control only to plummet right off the edge of the road.

Motherfucker.

Normally Jim would have laughed at him and tried to snatch the Wii controller from his hand but the other man was peering down at his phone, lips pulled into an intense frown and brows furrowing.

There was only two people in the world who could make him go from relaxed to so tense he looked like he was going to snap with one text message; his sister Jeanette and Tony Stark.

Hopefully it was Jeanie.

Bucky smirked as he pulled into the final straightaway. “That’s oh and seven Sam. You wanna go again?”

He glared. “You cheated.”

Sam dropped the controller on the coffee table with, perhaps, a bit more force than was needed. There was no point trying to catch up again since it was only by some strange miracle he’d been in first to begin with.

“I ain’t gotta cheat, pal. You’re awful.” Bucky did a good job of looking offended. “Lila beats you at this game.”

“Lila is an actual freak of nature.” Everyone knew Jim’s niece was some kind of prodigy. She made other three year olds look like idiots and occasionally beat Sam so badly at video games he contemplated just throwing the whole system out the window.

He liked the girl and was always on board to babysit when Jim’s sister needed the help, which was often but it wasn’t Sam’s place to talk about that kind of thing, but she was infuriating. If not for the advantage of fully developed motor skills he’d never win anything when she was over.

Jim pressed his phone to his ear. “Tony? I thought you were in the Hamptons with your parents.”

Being infuriating was a genetic trait apparently.

Bucky shot him a look that had more layers than Sam was willing to sort out at the moment but was pretty sure he agreed with, then hopped off of the couch and padded towards the kitchen. Sam shuffled over into the spot the younger man had been occupying, stretching himself out, then nudged Jim’s shoulder with his toe.

He got a distracted wave in response. “You’re where? Do you just ignore everything I say for fun or what? You don’t-”

Sam rolled over onto his stomach then reached for the ice cream. He eyeballed the spoons on the coffee table, declared them entirely too far away, and plucked the one hanging limply from his roommate’s fingers.

Jim spared him a look before rolling to his feet and headed for the front door. “No, fine. Just. Stay where you are. I’m coming.”

Sam stuck the spoon into his mouth, letting the smooth buttery flavor melt over his tongue, and kept his mouth firmly shut as he watched Jim shove his feet into his shrug and shrug on his jacket. Bucky wasn’t so inclined, but then if Sam had learned anything since Bucky had moved in it was that guys from Brooklyn had no fucking filter.

The brunette set down the frozen pizza box he’d be eyeing and frowned. “Isn’t that the fourth time this semester?”

Jim shrugged but had the grace to look sheepish. “Tony locked himself in the bathroom at some party Stone dragged him to then ditched him at.”

“Call his dad.” It was an innocent enough suggestion and Bucky was all big sweet eyes behind the fringe of his hair and a carefully casual tone when he said it. 

Sam licked his spoon. 

Jim hesitated for the barest of moments. “You know I can’t-”

“Right. What was I thinking?”  

Jim’s eyebrows went up at the younger man’s bitterly sarcastic words. Sam shoved another spoonful of ice cream into his mouth and, when Bucky looked at him for help, shrugged. He’d given up trying to talk sense into Jim when it comes to Stark. The kid was messed up, more messed up than any sixteen year old should have been and Jim seemed to be the only actual friend he had. There was Tiberius Stone, of course, but Sam had a lot of thoughts about a guy who hung out with a sixteen year old and let that same kid get incredibly drunk regularly and ditched him at parties, among other things, and none of those thoughts was ‘great friend’.

The point was that nothing anyone said was going to make him realize answering whenever Stark fucked himself up wasn’t helping so he just stayed out of it. Bucky was more stubborn than Sam was but he supposed years of chasing after Steve would do that to a person.

Of course trying to keep Steve from, if the stories were accurate, getting beat up in the name of justice and truth was a little different from whatever was going on with Stark.

Jim looked between the two of them, a flicker of something in his eyes, then sighed. “I won’t be gone long. Don’t burn anything down.”

He didn’t slam the door on his way out but the firm click it made was as good as. Bucky snatched the pizza box back up, muttering under his breath as he stalked around the kitchen.

Sam switched over to the Time’s Square footage, figuring a rematch was unlikely. Half the fun was in the person not playing trash talking the ones doing the racing and Jim had a unmatched talent for picking them apart.

Something about the deadpan expression and casually mocking tone really worked for Jim. 

It also  _really_  worked for Sam but in a completely different way. 

Bucky walked back and forth a few times and if Sam hadn’t already been able to read the annoyance on his face the way he was cleaning things up would have given it away. Bucky was an angry cleaner which was handy from a chore perspective. (Bucky worked at Starbucks so he was angry a lot) He even went so far as to put the ice cream away in spite of Sam’s attempts to dig a few more melted bites out of it. When he was finished he settled onto the floor in front of the couch and offered up a plate with steaming slices of pizza on it.

Sam was biting into one of the pieces, studiously ignoring that the cheese was basically molten hot lava and would only bring regret, when both of their phones buzzed. Bucky leaned forward to look then made a quiet humming noise and picked up his phone.

“Both from Steve.” He swiped his thumb over the screen. “He says…Peggy said yes.”

Sam chewed slowly, trying to gauge his roommate’s reaction. Bucky didn’t look upset, just startled and a little dazed.  Another buzz had him looking down and blinking rapidly.

“They’re outside with Angie. They want me to come out and celebrate.” Another blink and then he was standing up and rushing out of the living room down the hallway the lead to the bedrooms.

Sam reached for his phone and opened the message from Steve, a very enthusiastic, all caps ‘She said Yes!’. Sam chuckled quietly before tapping out a reply. Peggy and Steve were an interesting couple; Peggy was pre-law and had her eye on becoming a senator one day and Steve was a skinny art student who couldn’t stay out of fights, but they seemed to really work and understand each other.

Sam was only vaguely jealous.

_‘Poor Peggy. What was she thinking saying yes to you?’_

Steve’s response was swift.  _‘Ikr? She must be crazy but it’s too late now. Tell Buck we’re freezing to death out here so hurry up.’_

Bucky choose that moment to emerge from the back, completely dressed and looking slightly concerned. “I can stay? If you want?”

Sam’s eyebrows went up. Honestly he would have liked the company but he wasn’t about to get in the way of an impending celebration. “To do what, watch to ball drop with me and drink more shit beer? No thanks man. Peggy’s gonna need you more than I will once she realizes she’s just agreed to spend forever with Steve.”

“Well. You could come with?”

Sam frowned and looked down at his phone on reflex. The refusal was on the tip of his tongue; it seemed more like a ‘close friends’ kind of occasion and while he considered Peggy and Steve friends the truth was they were connected through Bucky and hadn’t known each other that long. Plus he wasn’t exactly dressed for anything except more couch sitting so the happy couple and Angie would have to wait even longer. Plus it was freezing cold outside and the couch was incredibly comfortable and he was really warm.

And there was always the chance Riley would call.

Then he looked back at his roommate. Bucky flashed him a smile that had Sam’s stomach twisting. It wasn’t his ‘I could charm the pants off of your mother and father’ smile but rather the small slow one that only showed up when he was really happy with something.

“Yeah sure. Gimmie a minute.”

He was only human after, how the hell was he supposed to say no to that? It just wasn’t fair.

He traded his t-shirt and sweats for jeans and a long sleeved shirt quickly, grabbed his wallet and keys off of his dresser, and was sitting on the couch while Bucky leaned over the back, propped up on his elbows, pulling on his boots when the door opened. Jim walked in, brushing snow off his shoulders. Sam was tempted to ask what had happened with Stark but one look at the weary expression on his friend’s face had him thinking better of it.

Some things you just had to leave alone.

“I went ahead and let your friends into the building. You’re welcome.”

Bucky shrugged. “They’re fine. We’re a cold weather people.”

Sam snorted. Jim looked faintly amused as he shuffled deeper into the room. “Heading out? I heard the news.”

“Yeah. You wanna come?” Bucky moved away from the couch and sidled up next to Jim, lips curling up into a slow sly grin. Sam was pretty sure if it had been aimed at him he would have agreed to do whatever Bucky wanted (again) but Jim looked mostly unimpressed.

“10! 9! 8!” Hundreds of voices called out together.

“Bucky-”

“Jamie.”

Jim’s glare might have been colder than the air outside.

“7! 6! 5!”

That was a fight starter if ever there was one so Sam cast a glance at the TV and the crowd eager counting down together. He’d forgotten all about it; Steve’s proposal and Bucky’s offer to go out had completely pushed it out of his head.

“4! 3! 2!”

Hands settled onto his shoulders from behind and he tilted his head back to find Jim hovering over him. The other man shifted, coming closer and letting his hands drift down so his arms could drape over Sam’s chest and his chin was on his shoulder.

“1!” There were cheers from the TV and outside and maybe some some muffled ones from the other apartments.

Jim smiled at him, a faint quirk of the lips, then he was kissing him. It was quick, just a warm press of lips against his own, and over just as he started to respond.

He didn’t have time to do much more than blink before Jim was moving back and Bucky was leaning over the back of the couch to pull him into a soft slide of lips with just a hint of teeth on his bottom lip at the end.

Bucky pulled back with a wink then straightened up and shifted a little closer to Jim then ducked down to close the height gap.

Sam’s mouth went dry.

There was nothing quick or chaste about what he was watching. It slow and intimate and there was a certain familiarity to it; at some point Bucky’s hand came up to rest on the back of Jim’s neck and they moved so their legs were slotted together. Someone gasped, arched up, and there was a flash of tongue and parted lips and

He’d gotten the short end of this deal.

“This couldn’t wait?”

He looked away from Jim and Bucky (no easy feat) to find Angie standing in their open doorway, arms crossed over her chest. Sam couldn’t begin to imagine what it looked like (well, yes, yes he could and probably would later.) with one of Jim’s hands on him and the other under Bucky’s shirt while they licked their way into each other’s mouths.  

Angie didn’t look particularly shocked which put her ahead of Sam on the matter.

Bucky untangled himself from Jim, face flushed but smiling widely, then headed over to the woman. “Angie, hey. Sorry, we’re coming. Just had to convince Jim to come with.”

“I’m convinced by the way.” Jim added, a note of laughter to his words.

“I’m sure.” Angie squinted at them but allowed herself to be pulled away from the door and towards the stairs. “Is this like the McGuire twins?”

“I thought we agreed to never talk about that.” Was the last thing Sam heard clearly before they headed down the stairs.

Sam let himself be hauled off of the couch and more or less shoved out of the apartment, coat in hand. It was for the best because left to his own devices he might had stayed where he was, contemplating what had just taken place.

Sam was aware that they were closer than the average roommates; there was some casual touching that other people might not have thought was so casual. Sometimes they all wedged onto the couch together and heads or feet might have ended up on someone else’s lap. On a few occasions excessive drunkenness might have lead to everyone piling together in the nearest bed (which always seemed to be Sam’s).

And sometimes sober bitching sessions also lead to everyone piling together in the nearest bed to eat popcorn and watch Netflix (and yes, he was aware of the connotation) and generally block out the rest of the world.

Sometimes there were awkward boners come morning, on Sam’s part anyway, but he was pretty sure that was still just baseline ‘kind of weirdly close’.

All of that, however, had seemed a little closer than closer than average.

He managed to pull his coat, his hat, and most of his wits together by the time Jim was out and had locked the door after him. Sam started down the stairs first but Jim was close behind.

“Is that what you two do when I’m not around?”

“What?”

Sam made a gesture he could only hope began to encompass the past three minutes of his life. It must have gotten the point across because Jim laughed.

“Maybe.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> Uh. If you were curious Tony is fine (or as fine as he can be) Rhodey took him back to his dorm, tossed him into bed, and liberated him of his cellphone and wallet in hopes being without will keep Tony in one place until morning.


End file.
